


Small and Strange

by sisterwinter



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, He/Him/His Pronouns for Dark Sun Gwyndolin, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21866626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisterwinter/pseuds/sisterwinter
Summary: Ornstein the Dragonslayer received his feudal name, his rank, and his duties from his regnant, Lord Gwyn.Leo the Firstfound received his cognomen, his armor, and his final command from his founder, the Firstborn.After his defeat at the hands of a Chosen Undead soldier, Leo of Ornstein contemplates the world as it was and is, and discovers a new command to shape the world that will be.
Relationships: Artorias the Abysswalker & Dragon Slayer Ornstein, Dark Sun Gwyndolin/Dragon Slayer Ornstein, Dragon Slayer Ornstein & The Nameless King, Lord Gwyn's Firstborn & Dragon Slayer Ornstein
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Small and Strange

**Author's Note:**

> A collection of Ornstein POVs divided into three timelines:
> 
> 1) Before Dark Souls I (Gods & Men)  
> 2) During Dark Souls I (A Final Command)  
> 3) During Dark Souls III (A Command Renewed)

**1\. The Firstfound of the Firstborn**

Like most gods, Ornstein can remember a time without flame, without form, without desire or suffering, without hunger, satiation, warmth or cold. He can remember a time without companionship, and a time without the _self_ needed to recognize its absence.

Like most gods, he remembers being _F_ _ound_.

Before the Firstborn, it was how all gods became beings. Ornstein remembers experiencing the first flickers of sensation when he first perceived the Firstborn: twin pinpricks of light moving about in the dark, glowing independently of the matter around them. He began to study form and notice patterns and colors; he began to think in a wordless syntax to describe them.

A fall of non-color matter _there_ above the lights that sometimes moved and swayed, but never too much; flashes of gold matter _here_ that reflected short light waves but generated no light of their own; longer, slower waves of energy in steady patterns ( _step-step-step_ ) that became _sound_ when he noticed them.

Because Ornstein was not yet Ornstein and did not understand time, he could not sense any change within himself. But he must have reached some critical stage of development eventually, because one day the Firstborn Found him.

He was again following the twin lights, and discovered that he could only draw so close. He experienced a _sense_ of resistance when he tried to move through some of the surrounding matter. The lights shone brighter, a caress circuited the shapeless borders of his awareness, and suddenly there was a Being, a Self, pulled into the breathing world.

A strange tremor shook him _(cold-terror-muscle-skin)_ _;_ he could _feel_ the hum of matter and energy around his form _(heartbeat-breath-hearing)_. A sensation of pressure, and he perceived a - a _hand_ _(not-self-other)_ clasping his own. He looked up into a face ( _lips-teeth-hair-nose-ears- eyes)_ and an abrupt knowledge of the world, of himself, of the god before him coursed through him like the new lifeblood in his veins.

The Firstborn's eyes shone again and lifted at the corners, just a bit.

"We welcome thee to our lord father's kingdom. We have felt thy presence growing at our side. Thou art now numbered amongst the gods, and we call thee to a great work. Wilst thou answer this call?"

Lips over teeth and tongue. "Beside you, Lord?"

The Firstborn smiled. "Aye, Leo, our Firstfound. Beside us."

* * *

**2\. Beloved of Men**

Humans display a consistent lack of wisdom and judgement, and they do so in strange ways. They struggle to pass on the knowledge or skills acquired in their brief lifetimes to their innumerable offspring. Everything, it seems, must be learned anew.

Still, they do manage to pull together general agreements about the world and its ways to teach to their young, and they begin with their gods.

Gwyn, they worship year-round, and they sing praises to his favorite child, the Princess of Sunlight, in their fertility festivals.

They trembled before the Firstborn before his exile, and even the Princess of Moonlight, malformed and reclusive as he is, enjoys almost fanatical devotion from his acolytes.

Gods and men alike fear Nito; but some humans - those settled in mountains blackened by firefall and heat-bright earth's blood - fear the Witch and her Daughters more.

They despise Smough (easily done, Ornstein will admit) and hate Seath (Ornstein has overheard more than one wistful comment from his troops that "there is one dragon yet unslain in Lordran").

They admire the Four Knights: senior officers bring their most promising young daughters to meet the Lord's Blade Ciaran when she is in Anor Londo; senior archers do the same to introduce their sons to Hawkeye Gough. Ornstein himself has a baffling number of statues and sonnets constructed in his honor, and ten generations of troops have kept up a popular drinking game thinly-veiled as a battle hymn to the "Leonine Dragonslayer of Ornstein".

But Knight Artorias -

Artorias, they _love_.

Ciaran once told him that the humans believe Artorias loves them in kind; that he does not fear the darkness inside them as the other gods do. Ornstein had scoffed, saying that the humans had confused fear with disgust. A lion had nothing to fear from a mouse.

_(That was before the Witch sacrificed herself and her Daughters trying to stem the advancing Dark; before his Lord gave his body to the Flame; before Ornstein found himself protecting an empty city.)_

_(He knows better, now.)_

**Author's Note:**

> In events before Dark Souls 1, second person singular pronouns honor the T-V (thou/you) distinction that emerged in English sometime after the Normans invaded.
> 
> I use he/him/his pronouns for Gwyndolin unless a character in the story mistakenly references him with alternate pronouns. I know and respect that many people have invested a great deal of emotional and creative energy in different interpretations of this character's gender (or lack thereof). My personal interpretation of the source material is not meant to invalidate other interpretations, and I hope that we can all find common ground in the agreement that Gwyndolin, like a lot of characters in the series, deserves another shot at happiness.


End file.
